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Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Why does the USA 'spy' on the world as well as on its own people?

It seems that hardly a week goes past without hearing about yet another country taking exception to the fact that USA has been spying in some form or another on the nationals of other states as well as its own citizens, both within the USA and those overseas. Why this should come as a shock is quite surprising. The USA has always been involved in various forms of espionage and it is only recently that we have learned the actual extent of ‘some’ of this spying. Even allies are not exempt. In the last few days France and Germany have expressed a level of disquiet over the spying conducted by American sources. Huge numbers of electronic snooping has been admitted to and the Governments of the countries affected have made their feelings public.

It is the sheer amount of data collected by the USA agencies that shocks. Even this little item could be subject to ‘surveillance’ so I had better be careful

Let’s get real. The USA is not alone and it has been doing this for many years, simply because it can and it has the capacity to enter into all aspects of our lives. Why it does it is another question altogether. We a;; suspect a sinister motive but given the history of various ‘movements’ around the world and their desire to ‘hurt’ the USA, one can hardly be surprised at the actions of the USA.

They ‘do it’ because they can and their ability to enhance their operations is increasing at an incremental rate. We cannot guarantee that anything we do is private. How far will the USA go? That is anyone’s guess.

Other nations will catch up to where the USA is now, if they haven’t already. There have been allegations made, even in NZ that China and other nations (some our ‘friends) have been involved a level of espionage and those claims go back years. The old adage that ‘big brother is watching’ is a reality not a figment of anyone’s imagination. We better get used to the fact that we are being watched, for whatever reason and if one wishes to avoid such surveillance, then they will need to enter a time warp and divest themselves of any electronic devise or live a life that is so far below the ‘radar’ that they may as well ‘not exists.’

My conclusion: There is stuff all we can do about this phenomenon so we move on, cry out from time to time and just get on with life. Can we be angry? Yes, of course and do what we can to lessen the impact of Uncle Sam and Mother Wong watching us. I just don’t know how! Maybe, we should be ‘watching’ them.